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Twin Town High (vol. 8) |
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Amber Waves of Loss
Wednesday 23 November @ 18:32:53 |
 by Christopher Koza
In a modern era of daily war-related casualties, color-coded alert levels and rising tension on Capitol Hill, leave it to the voice of the artists to silently invite the daily citizen to become a participant in an ongoing and emotional debate.
War and Peace, the current exhibition at Roselux Gallery, offers somber imagery and symbolic suggestions of mortality from artists Camille J. Gage and Kate Pabst. This series of earnest commentary seeks to expose the crippling fear and privacy of violence and its definitive consequence.
 Gage,
who holds a BFA from MCAD and has received grants and awards from many sources,
including the Jerome Foundation and Intermedia Arts, taps the complex symbol
of the American flag as her primary vehicle. Using photographs that had been
previously censored for release by the U.S. government, but obtained by activist
Russ Kick (MemoryHole.org) utilizing the Freedom of Information Act, Gage
takes these images already steeped in drama and pares down the backgrounds to
isolate coffins containing dead U.S. soldiers. Draped in the Red, White and
Blue, Gage uses black acrylic paint to remove all other detail from the photograph,
reducing the image so that its key components become geometrical abstracts of
an American death.
While altered photography enhances the weight of the subject and controls the
artistic elements, Gage tastefully leaves other images only slightly altered
or completely intact. “Buried at Sea” is a beautiful testament to
the risks and rituals of patriotism. Another powerful image shows 10 men standing
on a snow-dusted airfield crowding around the open hatch of a hearse, while
a plane parked in the distance invades the overcast horizon.
Like
Gage’s series, many of Pabst’s works also rely on the symbol of
the American flag. “War Will Exist,” a small 8 1/2” x 8 1/2”
mixed media composition combines a distressed representation of the flag with
a profound quote by John F. Kennedy written in scratchy cursive.  Pabst, also
an MCAD alum and award-winning artist, gives us several of these small abstracts
incorporating collage, handwriting, and symbols with quotes from various authors,
artists and other social icons, such as Dr. Martin Luther King and Leonard Cohen.
Pabst’s strongest piece is a large mixed media work on paper titled, “Soldier’s
Blog: Sat 20 Nov 2004.” This piece, a horizontal about 36” x 52”,
conveys from a soldier’s perspective a sense of psychological distress
and an attempt at understanding the confusion of being at war. In a handwritten
child-scrawl, imagery of fighting and reassurances of a happy ending are delivered
from an unseen soldier on an army-fatigue-colored surface, interplaying text
and other jagged sketches.
While there are no groundbreaking revelations, this show offers quality work
that provides insight into the mortal reality of war—particularly to those
who remain unaffected, or who only see war as an abstract problem, not a more
immediate and harsh struggle.
It is the timing of this collection, combined with the profound ideologies of
war and peace and its reclaimed position at the dining room table, that make
these compositions worth experiencing. ||
War and Peace: An Exhibition of Mixed Media Works by Camille Gage
and Kate Pabst is on display through Nov. 30 at Rosalux Gallery, 1011 Washington
Ave., Mpls., 612-396-3947. Gallery hours are Tue.–Thu. noon–8 p.m.;
Fri.–Sun. noon–5 p.m.
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